


Your Body

by yuletide_archivist



Category: MASH (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-10
Updated: 2008-06-10
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:26:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by michelle</p><p>I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough / To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Body

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tara Keezer

 

 

"Ladies, ladies," a nasal voice announces at the door, "We hear there's fresh blood among you. Sorry, did I say hear? We followed the scent from Seoul. Did I say Seoul? I meant from the Swamp."

You turn around as your new tentmates giggle and admonish the speaker -- tall, but he'd be even taller if he didn't slouch so much; hair darker than anything you've seen; it's hard to find him ugly when he's put a smile on your face.

"Lieutenant Robbins," you say, stretching out your hand. You can't help but blush madly and laugh when he takes it, kisses it, presses it against his chest, then wraps it and your arm around his waist -- the C.O. said you would get close to the people here fast, but this is a little ridiculous!

"Robbins, you say, like Jerome Robbins? Light on your feet? I'm grasping at _straws_ here trying to find something flattering to say about someone who's probably heard it all."

"Hawk, didn't we have a date tonight?" one of your tentmates asks. "Eight-thirty, supply tent?"

"Nine o'clock behind the curtain in post-op?" another asks.

His friend, taller and blond with tons of curls on his head, peeks around Hawk's shoulder and smirks coyly. "Fight all you want, ladies, but he comes home to _me_. Of course," he adds, "That could change. Lieutenant Robbins, don't let Major Houlihan tell you otherwise -- sleeping arrangements are _very_ flexible around here, and she can't actually do anything about it due to the, how shall we say, compromising state of her own."

If only that made sense!

You're still hooked around the tall, dark, and more handsome by the minute talker, a small voice near the back of your head wondering how long it was before you let Bob get this close to you back home. That voice quickly shuts up as the girls around you squeal.

"Did you hear, Liz?" someone asks you. "There's a party tonight!"

"Liz, eh?" Hawk's friend asks.

"What do you say, Liz?" Hawk himself asks.

"There was so much more packing and being unsociable I had to take care of," you joke, "But if you insist..."

"We always insist," Hawk says.

"And after this party, we'll keep insisting, and won't stop until you've been insisted home to recover," Hawk's friend adds.

"Captains, I think you better end this meeting of the Welcome Wagon -- she just got off five different kinds of transportation and now you want her to drink and dance with you all night?" one of your tentmates says.

"Lieutenant, you have, as always, several excellent points that I hope I'll be better acquainted with later," Hawk tells your tentmate. "And the same goes for all of you! Remember, Trap and I are equal opportunity leches and are available for weddings other than your own, parties, bat mitzvahs, and literal rolls in metaphorical hay." He bows at the door to the tent and you feel yourself relax from immediate-impress before pressing the clutch and switching into must-impress.

"Who... who _were_ they?" you ask as you return to your suitcase and continue to unpack nonchalantly. "Trap and Hawk? I think I missed a lot."

"Oh Liz, it didn't even occur to us that -- of course they wouldn't even introduce themselves, those big lugs!" The most talkative of your tentmates, Ann-Marie from Brooklyn, Lieutenant Scala or just Scala, sits on your cot and begins to ramble off their life stories while the others look for ways to accessorize their uniforms for the party in a few hours.

"Hawk is Hawkeye Pierce and Trap is... Trapper! Trapper McIntyre -- I think they're both married, but they don't act like it -- none of us do, really. Are you married?" You smile and show off your engagement ring, which leads to a few minutes of cooing and talking about Bob.

"Well, the saying around here goes 'engaged ain't married', but really, married ain't married either -- just do what you like, don't take it too seriously, _don't_ get into trouble, and the war will be just fine! Those two make things go a lot easier -- not just for us in particular, but always making every girl feel like a million bucks --"

"Twenty-five, at least," someone offers.

"They really do a lot for _morale_ , like Major Houlihan calls it -- basically, they make us all feel a lot less terrible at the end of the day. It's awful when they go on R&R together -- it's a lot like a real war then, especially when the doctors that are left can't stitch their own hands together and leave the patients alone so _we_ have to be watching them all the time for complications."

"So you've all... been around with those two?" you ask, hoping it's not too intrusive, but after that lengthy discussion on the camp's state, it's probably not.

They look amongst themselves for a moment, holding up fingers for how many times with Hawk or Trap on each hand, dissolving into laughter when one girl sits and starts to take off her boots as well.

"Are you and Bob real close?" another nurse (maybe her name is Shelley?) asks. "Playing hard to get really makes it fun for both of you."

"Both of who? Bob and me?" you ask, completely baffled.

"Oh no! For you and Hawkeye and Trapper."

* * *

  
The party is at 'the Swamp'. When you arrive there with your tentmates, the place is already packed -- it's a tent just like yours, and not made for entertaining the whole camp at once. The cots and chairs have been pressed against the walls but there are still too many people doing too much talking and breathing in the small space. They've strung inflated rubber gloves all along the ceiling and you can't help but wonder if this is really the war your mother was terrified of you joining.

"Hey everyone!" a voice calls out -- it's Hawkeye's. "Everyone make your way over to Lieutenant Robbins, in desperate need of some Korean hospitality -- but please, keep her limbs intact for me!"

You laugh and blush, and immediately a handsome guy in a bomber jacket takes you away from your tentmates, who aren't very sad to see you go as their attention is also being pulled in other directions. Some music is playing, one of those thousands of songs you've danced to with Bob that sounds just like all the others. The tent isn't full of dancing as much as couples swaying, and you're sure from outside it looks like the tent is moving along with everyone, too. 

This pilot, after the first song, decides to move his hands down below your hips and onto your regulation uniform pockets, and you're startled. That's something -- not so much what he's doing, but the fact that you're startled. You haven't been startled since getting on the Jeep and beginning the drive through what looked like northern California drilled full of holes. You should be culture shocked; you should be offended; your mother taught you to slap a man in the face, throw a drink on him, and storm out with your dignity and pride intact...

Except you're going to be here for at least 18 months, and you've spent twenty-four years being shocked, offended, a drink-thrower, full of integrity, and bored.

"May I cut in?"

The pilot steps aside, slightly annoyed, and suddenly you have to crane your neck -- it's Hawk's friend. "Trapper?" you ask cautiously.

"Got it in one -- also would have accepted Trap, McIntyre, Darling, Adonis, but never John. And what can Hawk and I call you? Liz? Robbins? Lizzie? Robbie?"

"Liz is fine," you laugh. You move your hands up to his neck and the blood rushes away from them -- "You're too tall for dancing."

"That's unfortunate, because I really wanted to dance with you. Hold on." He wraps his arms around your waist, picks you up, and puts you on a cot near the wall. Now your eyes are level with his hairline and you have to lean down towards him. "That better?"

"Different."

"Different's better. We're priests of novelty, mortal enemies of boredom -- if it's different, we probably approve."

"Do you ever talk about yourself in the first person?" you ask randomly. One of your tentmates is nearby, hooked onto someone's shoulders, and she shoots you a look that plainly asks whether the Jeep ride shook some screws loose. You're embarrassed for a second, but decide to ignore it. "Are you ever separate from Hawkeye?"

"Look at us be separate right now while he carouses with Lieutenant Dish and I carouse with _The_ Dish of the night." You're about to apologize and admit that you're thinking or talking too much, but he says it for you. "You need a drink. Have you had a drink since landing in this pit? It's time for your crash course in cirrhosis of the liver."

* * *

  
Trapper takes the olive out of your martini and rests it against your lips. You open your teeth and bite it, looking straight at him the entire time. You think of the first and only time you had a martini back home -- one restless night out with Bob when, on remarking you wanted to do something exciting, he dared you to order something you had never ordered before. "Dry martini," you said, and almost gagged at the first sip of pure gin coating your mouth like poison. Bob laughed and bought you something sweet and virgin for a reward.

This is different. The gin is horrible and burns every inch of your mouth and esophagus, it's warmer than room temperature due to the still being surrounded by so many bodies, and you _hate_ olives. But here's a handsome, charming, married man (those must be his blonde daughters framed next to the still) seductively feeding you one and who the hell are you to protest?

"I hate olives," he tells you. "But if you're drinking liquid poison, why not get a food group in there, too?"

"Yeah," you reply, and the warmth of the room, volume of the music and chatter, novelty of being in a totally new place, gives you the courage to step up on a cot again and lean in towards his ear, too mentally occupied to whisper anything but adventurous enough to blow in his ear until he gets the idea and gnaws on your neck like it's his wife's. 

* * *

  
Maybe it's ten minutes, maybe it's an hour, three hours, four hours, a year later, but you're outside and up against a pole of the Swamp, neck and chest being ravaged by an only-somewhat-sloppy kisser (it's definitely not Trapper). He's taking far too long to do whatever he wants to do, and you suddenly escape from his clutches -- no offense, no apologies, he's too drunk to be too broken up about it and you've had to go to the bathroom for a very long time.

There. Latrines. It says latrines -- but next door, it says officers' latrines. You're drunker than you were earlier, and wonder if they'll really throw you out of Korea for using one hole in the ground over another. (You're going to pee in what is essentially a hole in the ground. Why aren't you more terrified of this?) You decide not to risk it and go into the non-officers' latrine because you can't remember whether your Second Lieutenant bar makes you a real officer or not.

You sit down, you pee, but your head feels too clouded and heavy to make your body stand again. Who would mind if you sat for a bit longer, head in hands, and collected yourself? Everyone seems to be at the Swamp -- was that your C.O. in the corner with a hat full of fishing lures and a lampshade made of hats with fishing lures? Some of that has to have been made up. Maybe you only saw a lamp with a hat.

Stop -- the wall of the latrine has just been pummeled by something _big_. You stay completely quiet, so sure that it's someone just as drunk as you are, but then again, this is Korea -- it could be anything.

Pulling yourself together, mentally and literally, you leave the latrine and edge around, trying to see where the action is coming from. One side -- yes, it's two people and they're too close for you to observe without being seen. You go to the other side, run as far as the officers' latrine, then around its side so you're behind both latrines. Slivers of light from the camp illuminate a little of what's going on -- you were right. Drunken sex against a wall. You're almost disappointed it's so banal (not that you _ever_ saw this sort of thing in Sonoma).

Except you know the taller, dominant silhouette that's almost hidden by the darkness. You know it because you were running your fingers through that hair, along those ears and that neck, trying to memorize every contour during the third most daring thing you've done in your life. You smile a little, glad that the nurses were right about everyone sharing and sharing alike.

Except the hand that grips the side of the latrine you were in, the hand belonging to a body being pushed furiously against the wooden wall you were trying to die against, is very masculine. You're only a nurse, but you know the difference.

And you _know_ that nasal voice that welcomed you to Korea, that voice that never quite stops.

* * *

  
You walk away and leave them to whatever they're doing (you _know_ what they're doing) and for some reason, _that_ is when Korea hits you. Not the MPs stopping your Jeep what seems like every five minutes and asking invasive questions, not the tour around camp and post-op, not Houlihan rattling off your duties and her expectations of your performance, not even this ridiculous social life and how many bases you've covered with strangers during the quarter day you've been in this hemisphere.

No, it's Hawkeye and Trapper coming towards you from pre-op where they cleaned up while you're still outside cooling down from their party, their gin, his hands, and the weather. During the party they were both too intense and now they're coolly confident again, Trapper swaggering and Hawkeye slouch-crawling towards you with a smile.

"How's the war treating you, Robbins?" It takes you a moment to answer Hawkeye -- is that concern? Can the terminally glib show concern? You force a smile and feel like he sees right through it. "Yeah," he replies, looking around at everything and you think he focuses a little too long on his cohort. "Just wait until the medicine starts. You'll appreciate our home-brewed decadence a lot more when you've been dragged through our slaughterhouse that specializes in adolescents."

Trapper doesn't say anything. He puts an arm around your shoulders and smoothes your hair.

* * *

  
The war is kind enough to let you sleep until about ten -- then people are outside your door, screaming for more nurses.

"Girls, wake up! Wounded in the compound!" You assume that's what a nurse should say since it was just announced over the PA system. You think you have the advantage, having shot out of bed five seconds before they did, but you need those five seconds more than they do. Their boots are on, hair picked up, shirts buttoned up, and you're still looking for a hair twist.

Major Houlihan sends you to pre-op to help with triage. This was the routine she tried to drill into your head: call for a doctor, watch him diagnose, carry out the order. Standing there beside a moaning man roughly your brother's age, the panic sets in. You see Trapper and shout for him. He runs over, looks under the pressure bandage, and tells you what to do. He even points in the right direction of things. You squeeze the soldier's hand before running for some plasma and an IV.

You repeat that six more times before Major Houlihan tells you to scrub up.

* * *

  
You can finally breathe in the operating room behind your mask. You're assisting Colonel "Henry's fine, dear, scalpel please" Blake, your C.O. You think he made a pass at you last night, but you can't be completely sure.

Nor do you care, because this is your first real surgery. You shouldn't tell anyone that, you absolutely should not mention it because you're a _nurse_ , but you worked for an old and old-fashioned doctor who tried to obstruct bodies from you as much as he could. You passed the instruments. Occasionally you suctioned and sponged things from around his arm. It was all abstract and very red. 

Colonel Blake's patient is also abstract, but in a completely different and grotesque, blown apart way. You swallow the lump in your throat every few minutes, passing each instrument when asked for, staring at the Colonel's work. You're taken aback as the half-hour or forty-five minutes pass and the doctor has constructed a new internal system for this boy who will only know the very basic details. You saw the stitching, the moving, removing, everything.

"How are you holding up, Robbins?" Hawkeye asks from across the room.

"She's doing fine -- aren't you?" Henry asks. He's also absurdly tall and you look up, nodding slightly. "She's dropped less instruments than Frank on a good day!"

"Sir!" a petulant, squeaky voice protests.

"Don't be upset, Frank -- you just need to tell Hot Lips to stop drooling on you before she puts these delicate tools of the trade in your cloven hoof," Hawkeye replies.

"Just shut your hole, Pierce! If I wanted this kind of abuse, I would have stayed home with my wife!"

"If these kids wanted your kind of abuse, they would have let the Chinese kill them before risking the chance of having Major Frank 'The Butcher' Burns fix them."

"And remember when translating for our foreign audience that if 'fix' is used in the context of Frank, it comes closer to meaning 'massacre' or 'putting something through a sausage grinder with more pain and less deliciousness'," Trapper adds.

"All right, enough of that," Henry interrupts from above and next to you, "I just got to this kid's intestines and I don't need to be thinking of sausage while stitching him up."

"What about bacon?" Hawkeye asks several patients down. "Muffins? Biscuits? Grits? Oatmeal?"

"Really, doctor!" Major Houlihan shrieks from behind you. "You're making us all sick!"

"Finally, someone speaks on behalf of Frank's patients everywhere," Trapper says. He looks at you and he might be smirking behind the mask. You focus on the procedure again, trying not to see the crinkle of his eyes in the folds of these intestines.

"You know, I'm really not going to take much more of this!" shrieks the voice you suppose is Frank's.

"Good, neither are your patients," Hawkeye says with an air of finality. He snaps off his gloves and throws them away. "Someone take this guy to post-op and bring me someone new, new I tell you!!"

"Don't mind them," Henry whispers to you from far above your head like God. "You'll appreciate the chatter when we're stuck in here for 18 hour stretches, and maybe you'll even talk to liven it up a bit, hmm?"

"Sorry, Colonel," you say.

"'Sorry Colonel' what? You're not going to make conversation?"

"Oh, no, I am, it's just -- well, it's all a lot to handle right now," you confide. "Uh, socially, I mean. Banter and conversationally. They're all really quick. I'm... not."

"Sweetheart, none of us is as quick as we seem -- just looks like that because of hours, days, weeks, and months of practice. Goes for just about everything we do around here. Yes," he hisses, "Got that little bugger I've been looking for this whole time. Right, can you close up while I check on the others?"

You nod and take over. Two pairs of eyes facing you watch occasionally and when they're not watching, the two pairs behind you are. Major Houlihan sidles up next to you just as you finish closing. She touches the sutures, runs her gloved fingers over them, and hands you an adhesive bandage. "Tighter next time -- closer together, they shouldn't be like speed bumps in a road but the road itself."

* * *

  
Your first stretch in the OR is eight hours, but by the time you emerge, you realize that you haven't eaten in more than a day -- maybe two days if you ever figure out that International Date Line nonsense. You put your green on again and head towards the mess, waylaid by Trapper and Hawkeye along the road.

"And that was your first OR session!" Hawkeye announces. "You didn't kill anyone, vomit, drop anything, or burst into tears! Very impressive! Better than Frank on his best days!"

"Have we been near each other too long?" you ask. "I'm pretty sure I've heard that joke in the past six hours."

"You're absolutely right. I'll save it for when we haven't seen each other _or_ the illustrious Major Burns in more than fifteen minutes. How's that sound?"

"Not as good as getting some food would." Hawkeye smirks and opens the door of the mess for you, comically shoving his way in before Trapper.

"Fair warning," Trapper tells you as he hands you a tray. "This will kill you."

"Maybe not today," Hawkeye begins dramatically, tilting his head down towards you so that you can imagine the fedora shadowing his eyes, "Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

You laugh, but stop laughing when you look at the food being dumped on your plate. "Does it always look like this?"

"Oh no," Trapper says, "Sometimes it moves." He hits a lump of 'spinach' with a spoon and waves the spoon angrily in the server's face. You smile and head over to sit with the nurses while they head to their table with the priest, the clerk, and the two bickering Majors that turn immediately on them.

You approach the nurses' table and are immediately welcomed by your tentmates. However, your mind spins the moment you sit on the hard wooden bench; your brain flashes images of the night before, behind the latrines, those two charming and talky surgeons that were just with you -- _what_?

"So not one of you is madly in love with Hawkeye or Trapper?" you ask randomly down the table. The nurses all look amongst themselves and laugh so loudly they draw the attention of the rest of the mess.

"A few months ago," one begins, "You might have heard that there was a rumor of a ceasefire. Most of us were here then and we spent all day celebrating, it was fantastic. That was when Hawkeye went around telling everyone he had ever fooled around with that he couldn't marry them in the States because he was already married with about ten kids." You choke and she assures you it's not true. "At least, I don't think it is because three days later, when we're all over the disappointment, he's going around telling people it was a moment of clinical mania and engagement rings from Sears are on the way to Korea."

"Even if he hadn't been such an _ass_ ," another nurse began, "Would you really marry someone like Hawkeye Pierce? You've just met him! Is he marrying material?"

You think of your engagement ring, which you slipped off and put in your shirt pocket before scrubbing up and have yet to put on again; you think of your marriage material back home and wonder whether dependable, loving, caring, serious Bob or someone like Hawkeye would be a better option for your life's companion.

You shrug in response because your brain has boycott thinking until you feed your body the allegedly nutritious horrors on your tray. Maybe the potatoes aren't too bad.

* * *

  
You write your first letter home. _Dear Bob_ , it starts. It's been five days. How do you sum them up? You've had about fifteen meals (three of them liver), fifty hours on your feet in the OR, rounds in post-op, reviewing some procedures with Major Houlihan, and you've been introduced to Rosie's, where the beer is as vicious as the random fights Marines like to start.

 _Everything is great here._ You're so sure that you wrote that to your mother that summer you went to camp. _Awful but great. The work is hard, the bodies (and meals!) are gruesome, but it's exactly what I wanted._

You dip into your shirt pocket, take out your engagement ring, and slip it on. You've had take it off a lot because of all the manual work you do... you get up and look in your tiny jewelry box for a chain to slip it on. It's less likely to get in the way there. Yes, you can slip the L pendant off that chain and put your ring there. Now you can write to Bob.

 _I miss you a lot._ You smile because Bob worries _so_ much about every little thing -- you better make sure everything sounds wonderful. _The people here have been really good to me. The arrogant to nice doctor ratio here is 1:3, which is really out of proportion from stateside, don't you think? No one is catty, but maybe I've caught them in a good week. They tell me the camp gets vicious during a lull in casualties, but I don't think that's true or at least not as bad as they make it sound._

You've almost filled a sheet of paper -- time to wrap it up. _Tell Mom and Larry I miss them and they'll be getting letters of their own soon; tell everyone at the hospital I don't miss them at all (but not really, just a joke!) I miss you, but I said that already._

You flourish your handwriting on _Love, Liz_ , then pack the letter up into its envelope before you can think too much about it.

* * *

  
One of those days Hawkeye talked about that first night outside the Swamp happens. You think of it as one 'day', but in reality it was closer to three. It started one afternoon (they say Tuesday, you really can't remember), stretched all night (you slept for ten minutes in the mess tent before Ann-Marie came to wake you and take her own nap), then into the next day (the food tastes much better when you have only ten minutes to pour a day's worth down your throat so you could scrub up again), and that whole night into the next morning (you remember leaning against a corpsman on a bench and rudely dozing off for a second before realizing he was already asleep).

After that marathon, you have your usual evening shift. You go around the beds in post-op making sure the boys are fine and comfortable; three make passes at you, which you think is all right considering you haven't slept in a week (so it feels). Then again, you also help keep them alive, sedated, clean, and fed, so maybe they know it's nice to pet the hand that drugs them.

"Nurse Robbins," Trapper calls out. You get up from a patient's bed and walk over. "Have you given Loomis here his penicillin yet? He was due twenty minutes ago."

"Oh no, I'm so sorry, I was caught up, I started from the wrong side -- "

He laughs and looks at Loomis, who appears slightly worried. "It's funny, kid. She started from the wrong side. Come on, give her a break, it's her first week."

"It's my first shell wound and infection, sir," Loomis replies icily.

As they talk next to you, you prepare the injection and try to stop your hands from shaking. It's a minor mistake, but it could have been much worse. It's so easy to forget something as small as _penicillin_ when the other boys are missing their painkillers and being really loud about it.

"And with our A-1 treatment, it'll be your last," Trapper tells him, "Unless you go out and do something stupid like join another war."

"You calling this war stupid, doctor?" he asks. He tries to sit up and you hold him down, gently but firmly. Trapper gives him the shot and passes the syringe back to you.

"Call 'em as I see 'em, kid -- now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to -- "

In just a few seconds, Trapper turns his back on Loomis; Loomis grabs the syringe out of your hand; you scream and scare the hell out of everyone; Loomis launches the syringe right at Trapper and it misses him by sheer luck; the syringe lands next to a boy's head in his pillow and he screams; you scream again; Loomis tries to get up, but you force him down again, this time harder than you should have because he screams in pain.

"Listen here, bud," Trapper says when he materializes next to Loomis and examines where you pressed him. "That's the last time you do something like that, you hear me? This time we're sedating you until you're shipped to the evac, but if there's a next time, we might just find you good enough to ship back to the front. Got me?"

"Sending me back to the front as a punishment!" Loomis laughs. "I'd _love_ to go. Which one of you do I have to assault for _that_ to happen? Maybe I can get some medals for really hurting some of you Commie doctors!"

"Nurse, check on the kid with the syringe for a bedmate while I talk some sense into this nut. If I'm still here in a few, get him a sedative cocktail to stay."

You rush over, glad to leave, and bend down towards the terrified boy -- Riley? Ridley? "Oh good, it didn't hurt you," you say as you pull out the syringe. "And I'll take your pillow, it might be contaminated. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine -- except, uh -- " He stammers and blushes, and you lean in a little closer. "I might need a change of sheets -- you know -- that was a needle coming right at me -- I didn't even see the bullet that hit me, but that -- "

"It's all right, I'll be right back with everything." You smile, take his pillow and the syringe, throw them in their separate disposal containers, and take a deep breath behind the curtain. Trapper is still arguing with Loomis. You prepare a sedative and bring it over.

"What's that?" Loomis snaps when he sees you with another syringe. "You're not serious about sedating me!"

"It's hard to keep anything close to a sterile environment around here with a mouth like yours shooting off every few minutes," Trapper replies. You hold one of Loomis' arms down and Trapper pins the other, injecting quickly and handing the syringe back to you. "Thanks -- take care of that other kid, check on my other patients I've had to neglect for this knucklehead, and when you have a minute, go tell Henry about this, okay?"

You say "Yes, sir" for the first time and do exactly what he says.

* * *

  
Your shift ends a few hours later, much quieter than it began. You've sedated Loomis every few hours, memorized the times when every patient needs a follow up, and you're ready to pass out from exhaustion. It's all mental -- it's --

"You eat yet, Robbins?" Trapper asks from way over your head.

"Slipped my mind -- have I already apologized for letting Loomis --"

"Only about eighteen times. Your shift's over, isn't it?" You nod and he motions to himself. "Mine too! Come back to the Swamp. My girls sent me some cookies that still taste kind of good after being tossed around in a box for three weeks."

You sleep with Trapper that night while Hawkeye is on duty in post-op and Major Burns is off with Major Houlihan. You think he knows it's your first time, and you think of Bob who came so close so often, but -- well. You spoon on his cot with the box of cookies on your hip, occasionally taking one and laughing at everything. He makes sure you've laughed and had a grin before you go to your tent, the showers, and your tent again for the last hour or two of night.

* * *

  
After the kind of welcome you had a few weeks back, you thought it was all chaos. It certainly seemed that way, but it's not at all. There are very precise systems in place, patterns you soon recognize and follow. When the wounded roll in, you know where to look first, second, and third for injuries. (Usually you're right and save the doctors a few seconds; sometimes you're wrong and it's one more variation of the pattern.) When the meals come along, you load up on potatoes and take the entree out of necessity; you drink the coffee quickly before everything can settle or your taste buds complain.

You feel lulls coming, even if you don't actually hear the Colonel and Radar talking about the lack of action nearby. People slow down, laugh out loud, start up fierce and involved football games they might actually finish, put effort into storing food for a picnic, and you can hear the furniture in the Swamp or mess tent being moved for a party after dinner. You recognize when the doctors are in the mood to fool around, know the corpsmen are always happy for their leftovers, know everyone is discreet because of the camp's general indiscretion.

You write to Bob variations of the same three letters: the 'I miss you' letter, the 'things are entertaining but of course I miss you' letter, and the 'I am so upset to be here and away from you, I miss you so much' letter. 

You forget about love. You realize that one random, bright day when you're walking to lunch with your friends, and you think of your mother. This sudden swelling of feeling is about to burst out of your chest because how could you have _forgotten_ what it felt like to be around her, hug her, talk and laugh with her? And your brother -- and Bob! You have to stop and tell everyone you'll be there in just a minute because you forgot to stop being a condescending bitch to your fiancee. You forgot how he holds you and means it with every fiber of his being. You forgot about people in the world that aren't quick and glib, that mean every word they say, that knew you when you were awkward, had braces and an unflattering haircut, and cared for you all the more because of it. The breath is knocked out of your chest and you wonder where on earth you've been for the past few months. You forgot there's more to your body than keeping it warm next to someone, anyone else's.

But you have to forget that if you want to keep going. It's not all fun -- the patients ask pitiful questions, like would you write a letter for them and let their parents or girls know they're okay, have they been hurt bad enough to go home, whether you've heard anything about a ceasefire, would you go out with them back in the States, could you give them just a little more morphine, could you stop waking them up to check on them every few hours at night, isn't there anything better to eat, isn't there anything more you can do, would you please just sit with them a little while longer, please?

Then you go out for a drink with a corpsman, a doctor, your friends, a visiting pilot, Radar, anyone really. You dance, laugh, hold each other close, sleep together or don't, never get enough real sleep -- you slouch at a table with a beer one night and Hawkeye sits with you, mimics your pose.

"Yeah, Robbins," he says, looking deep into your eyes and you wonder when his got so blue. "I diagnose you with a severe case of this whole camp needs something crazy to brighten up."

"Are you really married, doctor?" you ask.

"To my work, yes. To a real human lady-girl -- 'fraid not. Are you asking? I thought you'd already been asked." He motions to the chain around your neck, which he's never joked about. Completely ignored, yes, but never joked.

"I was just curious," you reply. "I mean, I -- who do you look to when you get out of here? Some days it's this," you pull on your chain, "The only thing that really keeps me tied down to anything. And you don't have that. Or do you?"

He shrugs and drums his fingers on the table. "I've got my dad. Got my work, town, principles, integrity, and for now, those are enough."

You don't believe him. You can't believe him. You've tried that, but it's always the people in your life you focus on. You tell him that. He smiles, misquotes _Hamlet_ , then drags you out of the chair to dance something fast with him, showcasing his total lack of rhythm for your amusement. Eventually he says, "Don't be offended, but you and every other nurse are like placeholders for me. I know Trapper and me are the same for you."

"I'll buy that," you tell him, and you do.

The strange thing is, you're sure you've had this conversation before -- anyway, he's not telling you anything you haven't already figured out for yourself.

"What crazy thing are you planning for the camp?" you ask.

"Now where would the fun be if I told you that?"

"I'll bet you have no idea."

"Nope, but maybe I will after one more grope around the room with you."

"If you insist."

Hawkeye wraps his arms around you and rests his head lightly on yours. You're trapped in a giant tent of gangly charming awkwardness and rub his back to see if he'd get off you. He does. Once in a while (like now), you think of that night when you saw him and Trapper together ( _together_ together) and wonder why people don't talk about it, expose them, get them discharged since this is, after all, _The Army_.

Then you realize that sounds like something Major Burns would do -- and it's sort of a rule of thumb that if Major Burns thinks it's right, then it's probably wrong. Anyway, if they're what keep the camp going, and one is what keeps the other going, why mess with the status quo? Swaying awkwardly through the Officers' Club with a few beers in your system and some decent music on the jukebox isn't a terrible way to spend the duration of this police action.

"Hawkeye, what are you going to do after the war?" you ask.

"Sleep for a year."

"Then what?"

"Get drunk and sleep for another year."

"Isn't that what you're trying to do now?"

"Exactly -- I came to Korea to perfect that system. I'm here on a research grant, you know." 

You laugh and stay quiet for a moment, then ask, "Did you know Trapper before you got here?"

"I did, actually -- our schools played football against each other. That is to say, our teammates played football against each other and we went to a bar during the second half."

"Really?"

"Yes, ma'am -- the big Androscoggin versus Dartmouth game -- big for Androscoggin, not so big for Dartmouth." You nod, satisfied, and he tilts your head back so you can look straight into his eyes. "Lots of questions tonight. Anything on your mind? If it's just me that's on your mind, may I recommend a change in position so I'm on more than your mind?"

You laugh and disentangle yourself from his clutches. He pouts for a few seconds before sweeping one your tentmates up for a spin around the room. As you're about to walk out, another pair of arms wrap around your waist, lips on your neck, curls poking you in the eye. You laugh and run a hand through them. "May not be Hawk's lucky night, but what about me?" he asks.

"I've got the blues," you say quite honestly but also a little coyly. "What do you do for those?"

"The blues are different in men and women," he replies half-jokingly. "But what do _I_ do? I find Hawk and we torture Frank. I find a sweet nurse like yourself and we give each other a good time. Basically, you shouldn't be alone."

Maybe you should be offended, disgusted, disappointed that Trapper solves almost everything with sex and that you, more often than not, follow his lead. However, seeing as the Army made you leave your board games, books, friends, movies, records, radio, family, and fiancee at home, you wonder if they've left you (the general you of the entire Pacific theater) any other option.

Trapper takes you outside the Officers' Club and the two of you sloppily waltz all the way back to the Swamp. Major Burns stops you and snaps at Trapper for several minutes, Major Houlihan occasionally commenting but usually saving her vitriol for a lengthy glare in your direction. If she disapproves of fraternizing, she rarely punishes the nurses for it with more than that frown.

The salad days of the war are over that night -- in just a few weeks, Colonel Blake will be sent home but killed before reaching Tokyo; Trapper will be sent home and have a three day drunken orgy to send himself off while Hawkeye R&Rs a new surgeon will come in and he'll wear Trapper's hats and kimonos for a few months before Hawkeye gives up on making him into another whoring hell raiser, settling for a chaste practical joker; Major Burns will leave, too, but that will be more relief than regret, except when the terrifyingly absurd Major Winchester strolls in and drops his Rs like they were shells from a plane.

You don't know that, though. You let Trapper briefly cure those blues and, in your blissful inebriation, tell him how grateful you are for him and Hawkeye -- what would the war have been without them? "Full of marching and formation," he tells you very seriously, and you laugh. He holds you a little tighter and adds, "It's mutual, kid. Awful to think we could have spent this war sober, faithful, and well-disciplined. I'm chafing just thinking about it."

You laugh softly, and fall asleep too soon.

 


End file.
